The rustle of satin made him look up, and he saw Anastasia glide across the library, a goddess in blue satin and diamonds. He had thought her rather lovely a few hours before when they had met at the Sumners’, but now he thought her utterly ravishing. Any man would be fortunate to have her.
“Adrian,” she said, her voice a soft caress as she ran her bare hands through his hair. “You have too many secrets to bear the burden alone.”
Closing his eyes once more, he laughed, a mocking sound from deep in his chest. “You have already shared too many with me, Anastasia, I won’t burden you further.” To do so would make the guilt insufferable. He loathed the feeing it gave him, and tried not to think of it, like he did every other night when he was alone, staring up at the ceiling in the ducal chamber, contemplating his life and what it was.
He stood, and she moved silently, like a cat, surprising him, making him jolt as she slid her palm up his chest, till she could skim the tips of her fingers along his cheek. She was looking at him with such an intense expression that he wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Somehow, he needed this tonight, needed to unburden his soul to another, someone who would understand what he endured. He wanted it to have been Lucy, but he could never share this secret with her. She would turn from him in disgust—horror, repulsion—and that, he knew, he could not live with.
“This is how he would have looked,” she whispered, her gaze skating over his face, “without the cruelty. So beautiful, so virile and strong.”
They both knew who she was talking of, and he stiffened even more, not wanting to think of him.
“You are so much like him, Adrian,” she said, cupping his cheek. “Tall and proud. And those eyes…”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice sounding hard and broken. “I am nothing like him. You should know that. You know what he was like.”
“Mmm, yes. I know. How strange it is, that when I look into your haunted gray eyes that I am reminded that, in a way, he made us both, didn’t he?” Stepping closer, her bodice brushed his waistcoat. “He took us both, and made us what we are—a high-class whore and a dutiful, proper heir. Despite all that, I loved him.”
“My father—” he began, then suddenly choked on the word. “He was never satisfied with anything until he got his hands involved, sullying and destroying, and making a creation that fit his ideal of perfection,” he growled as he took a sip of the whiskey, which Anastasia suddenly snatched from his hand, before resting the crystal glass on the table.
“All those years with him, I gave him my fidelity while watching you grow into something he could never aspire to be—a good, honest man, concerned with things that few of your world see as they go about their lives. He never saw the good in anybody, Adrian, only in himself. And you are so unlike him in that respect. You see the good in everything that surrounds you.”
He swallowed hard, watching as Anastasia pressed in closer. Remorse for all his lies flooded him as he listened to her words. When he looked in the mirror, he did not see what Anastasia saw. He did not see a man worthy of respect or redemption.
“It is time you put the past behind you. Put him behind you. Perhaps it is time for both of us, hmm? Despite loving him, I wanted you.” Her fingers reached for his cravat, began to slowly untie the knot. “But you knew that, didn’t you? But you were too dutiful, too proper to be tempted, too honorable in your own sense of right and wrong.”
He tried to protest, but she raised her finger to his lips silencing him.
“One look from you is all it would have taken. All it would still take.”
Alcohol was infusing his blood, but no amount would make him accept what she offered. Gently he cupped her shoulders in his palms and pulled her away. “You’re lovely, Anastasia, you know that.”
Her smile was at once sad and amused. “But not lovely enough to entice you.”
Turning from her, he strolled to the fireplace. Leaning against the mantel with a raised arm, he stared down into the hearth, which was left unlit. “No.” His answer was quiet, but firm. “I can be tempted by only one woman, and she will not have me.”
“More fool her, then,” she said, and he sensed that she was walking across the carpet, back to the settee. “She could have no idea of how lucky she is to have captured your attention.”
“Heart,” he clarified, and he looked over his shoulder in time to see her golden brows arch in surprise.
“Lucky girl. I would have given everything I had for a chance to gain your father’s heart.”
“My father had no heart, surely you realized that?”
“You’re right. He gave it all to you, didn’t he? Whether he knew it or not. You are everything he wasn’t.” She tipped her head, studied him. “And everything he was. The power is there, the ruthless determination. The strength and beauty—the animal lust, too, I think. But your eyes lack his cruelty, your hands…” Her gaze slipped to his palms, and her voice grew soft, almost reverent. “Your hands could touch with benediction, just as well as possession.”
“Anastasia,” he warned, but she smiled, and glanced away.
“Your lady will weep with pleasure, Adrian, with just one brush of those strong, loving hands. And you deserve nothing less than a woman who will treasure you. I have long hoped that perhaps, in time, I might be the woman to fulfill your needs.”
“I am sorry, Anastasia.”
She waved away his apology. “I did not wish to meet here tonight for that,” she said. “Although, I would be a liar if I did not hope it might happen.”
“It has nothing to do with your—”
“Age?” she supplied.
He shook his head. “I remember the day he introduced us. I was sixteen, and you were—”
“Your age now—eight and twenty,” she said with a grimace. “Now, I am forty.”
“I thought you rather beautiful, but now…you are simply stunning.”
Smiling, she glanced down at her hands. “It is only because you have taken such good care of me, Adrian.”
“You were good to my father, despite the fact he was nothing but a bastard to everyone—including you. You were good to me, too, and I could not see you return to that world of—”
“The demimonde?”
He nodded. “A plaything for men. I cannot stomach the notion, I never could.”
“How I wished I was fifteen years younger, Adrian. I would not give you up to any woman—not without a very great fight. You are the sort of man a woman should fight for.”
He snorted. “If only that were true.”
“Oh, it is, darling. I always told you that, didn’t I? How truly worthy of the title of duke, and gentleman you are.”
Indeed she had, and he had never believed it. Still didn’t.
“I have no plans this evening,” she said. “And I have a very good set of ears, despite the fact they are weighted down with these outrageously beautiful earrings you bought for me. Make use of my listening skills, and talk to me, Adrian.”
He glanced at the jewelry he had purchased for her the day after his father’s funeral ten years ago. He had set her free from his father’s grasp, buying her a small house in Mayfair, supplying her with a pension and monthly allowance, allowing her to keep the small bits and bobs his father had purchased for her. He’d bought the diamonds as a thank-you, not as prelude to anything more than that. He kept her in style, befitting what she was used to when she was his father’s mistress, because she had been his friend. His confidante during those horrible years when his father decided to make him into a Brethren Guardian.
“Well, then, if you have no desire to talk of your lady, then perhaps we might carry on with what brings us here?”
Mentally shaking himself, he downed the remainder of his whiskey, and turned to face her. “Yes, we should get on with things. I have a dawn appointment to attend.”
She gasped, her eyes growing large with alarm. “Adrian—”
Waving off her concern, he said, “Alynwick. Who else?”
Shaking her head, she settled back into the settee. “He will be the undoing of your little group.”
“I know it. I think father knew it, too. Always thought the Alynwicks were a reckless bunch.”
“Your father was a superstitious man, but he was as smart and cunning as the devil. I admired him for that.”
Anastasia Lockwood was the only nonmember of the Brethren to know anything about the Guardians, and he and she were the only ones who knew that. Neither Black nor Alynwick knew of Anastasia’s existence, or her knowledge of their order. By means out of his control, his father had included his mistress, telling her all. It proved just how much his father had trusted her. It proved how faithful Anastasia could be. After ten years without his father, she was still carrying their secrets.
“That little East End whore won’t tell a soul if she knows what’s good for her. I made her into what she is, and I can break her and bring her back to the little hovel I found her in.”
The previous Duke of Sussex deserved nothing out of the woman he had “made.” Regardless, Anastasia knew Adrian’s most damning secret of all. She would keep it. He would trust her with his life—in fact, he already had.
“Adrian?”
“Apologies, woolgathering, I’m afraid.” He should stop drinking. His mind was getting muddled, and he didn’t like the feeling, the sense he was giving up control. But he confessed he liked the numbness he felt. He hadn’t thought of Lucy for at least…two minutes.
Strolling to the sideboard, he splashed more whiskey into his snifter, watching as some of the amber liquid sloshed over the rim of the glass, landing on the polished rosewood. When he turned around, Anastasia was studying him intently.
“When we met two weeks ago, you shared some troubling news. I trust you have made progress in your search for this Orpheus?”
Nodding, he started to pace the room, indulging in the movement, the way the alcohol numbed him, filled his veins with a sensual lethargy. “Aye,” he slipped, and he shook his head, avoiding Anastasia’s raised brow. “Yes, we have. Black and Alynwick are doing more than I am, I’m afraid.”
“Too busy investigating other things, I imagine?” she said with a laugh, and he joined her.
“Yes, you would be right.”
“Well, since you take such good care of me, and I have had little interest in entertaining offers of male companionship, I have found myself at loose ends.”
“Oh?” he asked, surprised. “What of shopping or going to balls?”
She glared at him. “I have never been one to be amused by an excessive amount of fripperies, Adrian. You know that, but I will forgive you. Yes. In a plain manner of speaking, I’ve been bored to tears. But—” she reached to the side for her reticule and pulled it open, drawing something shining out of it “—there was one heady meeting at a ball last week, a perfectly delicious stranger who found me in a darkened corner. He presented me with his.”
She tossed it at him, and when it landed in his hand, it took everything he had not to drop his full snifter onto the carpet. What he held in his palm was a gold coin, with laurel leaves and a lyre. “The House of Orpheus.”
She smiled triumphantly. “Indeed. I’ve been twice. My companion is…well, let us just say he is rather high up in that little club, and he tends to speak rather freely during the art of amour.”
“Ana,” he ground out. “This is dangerous. It is no game for you to play.”
“Adrian, really, that is quite enough. I won’t have you scolding me like a child. I know what I am doing. Helping you. Like I used to assist your father.”
“Stop it at once.”
She jumped up from the settee, settling her hands on her hips. “Oh, don’t you dare!” she snapped. “Do not think to tell me what I can and cannot do. I know the risks, and I accept them.”
Anastasia had come from the rookeries of St. Giles parish. She knew danger, and had an uncanny knack for avoiding it. She was tough and smart, and if anyone could infiltrate the club for them, Ana could. But as a gentleman he couldn’t allow her to do so. As a Brethren Guardian, he needed her to.
“While you think of appropriate excuses to curb me from going, allow me to tell you what I know.”
Rubbing his thumb over the raised markings of the coin, he drank from his snifter as he watched her.
“Now then, my man’s name is Eros.” She winced. “The Greek God of Love he is not, but he believes himself to be, and I play along—it quite loosens his tongue.”
Adrian winced. He preferred not to hear anything along these lines, but he would endure it if only to discover what Ana had learned.
“The club is a reincarnation of the old Hell Fire Club. There’s food and music and debauchery. Plenty of debauchery, but it’s mixed with the new sensation for dabbling in the occult. There are soothsayers and séances, opium and absinthe to make the visions and séances more compelling—and other things, as well.”
When he was going to interject, Anastasia held up her hand. “There is an initiation ceremony two nights from now, and I have been invited to join. Orpheus, the leader of the club, is the master. He’s the one who inducts all the new members.”
Adrian saw where this was leading. “You’ll have a firsthand account of him.”
“And his weaknesses, plus any secret passages that might be of use to you and the other Guardians. I suspect that I shall even be able to get you in.”
He shook his head, glanced down at the coin. “I don’t know, it’s not safe.”
“Life is always a gamble, Adrian, and I believe this is a cause worth risking life and limb for. Don’t you?”
He had vowed on his life to hide the chalice, to uphold the order of the Guardians, to protect the world from an evil they had no idea lurked amongst them.
“Never tell what you know. Never say what you are. Never lose faith in your purpose for the kingdom to come will have need of you and your sons,” she said, repeating the Brethren oath.
“I remember,” he muttered, thinking of the oath, the way he had been held down by his father, the old Marquis of Alynwick and Earl of Black. Their sons had been there, too, Alynwick with his unreadable gaze, and Black with his eerie blue-green eyes.
He still felt the burn of his flesh as he was branded with the image of the Brethren Guardians, the way his body had twisted and lifted from the stone slab. He had screamed, the sound echoing off the coved ceiling of the Masonic Lodge, the hallowed place where the Brethren Guardians had initiated their sons for centuries.
“Keep it on his flesh longer,” his father had growled, “until he ceases to scream like a child and bears it like a man.”
He could still smell his burning flesh, feel the way his father’s big hands anchored his wrists in a steely hold.
“You disgust me, weakling,” his father had later said as he came to the room where Black and Alynwick had been adding salve to the burn in preparation of bandaging it. That was the way it went: the old order caused the pain, the fledglings, as they were known after initiation, were left to the menial task of soothing and bandaging. “Did you think it was only me that noticed the tears in your eyes? God, you humiliate me, boy!”
His father had swatted him across the head, and he had sat there, cold, unmoving. Numb. A poor reflection of a man and heir in his father’s eyes.
“You had better prove of use to me,” he’d growled, “or you’ll pay for it.”
“Think of something else,” Iain had suggested after his father had left in disgust, and the salve burned its way through the tender, singed flesh. “It always helps.”
“Think of what you’ll get out of this,” Black had said. “Think of the power.”
And he did. He thought on it, what he would obtain after the ordeal. It had sustained him; it still did.
The world of the Brethren Guardians was cold and isolated. Only the sons and fathers were to know of it. His father had broken a centuries-old silence by bringing his mistress into the fray—and to a certai
n extent, his daughter, who had discovered the truth through his drunken rages. Their world was at times violent and dangerous—like now.
But things were changing. Isabella knew of Black’s involvement, and Black took solace from his wife when he needed it, when he needed to talk. Now Ana, who had always been involved, was standing before him, wanting to help.
“You know, I will never listen to what you think, Adrian. I am determined.”
Closing his fingers over the coin, he gazed at her. “Then we welcome your assistance, Anastasia.”
A smile lit up her face. Hugging him, she pressed herself closely to him. “I will aid you in any way I can.”
“First, you can promise that you will stay safe, and come to me if you suspect you’re in any sort of danger at all.”
“Agreed.”
“And you will report daily, do you understand? Even if you have nothing to report. I want to know you’re safe. And damn it, Ana, send word whenever you go to that godforsaken club.”
Pulling away, she smiled and kissed his lips—like a mother with a son, or perhaps just two friends parting. When she moved back, she ran her fingers through his hair, tilted his face so she could look deeply into his eyes.
“Everything but the cruelty,” she whispered once more. “Lucky girl.”
She moved past him, reaching for her cloak that was draped over the arm of the settee, then her reticule. He tossed her the coin; she caught it and smiled. “It’s the ticket in,” she said, studying the coin. “You show it to the doorman at the Adelphi, and he has a footman escort you up to the club.”
Slipping away, Adrian watched her walk to the door, where she paused and glanced back at him.
“Thank you, for allowing me this opportunity to repay you for all you have done for me.”
He growled. “There is no need. I’ve told you—”
She waved off his remark. “Till we meet again.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SWIFTLY, LUCY maneuvered herself down the street, the heels of her half boots clicking in time along the cobbles, echoing against the bricks of the fog-shrouded town houses that loomed around her.
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